


I'm Not Gay But My Boyfriend Is

by PepperCat



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashpoint!AU, Homophobia, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Miscommunication, Rachel Rathaway's A+ Parenting, Slurs, Trust Issues, bi erasure, bribes and arguments, gendered slur, matter of principle, sex worker slur, throwing drinks, without the SO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9500924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperCat/pseuds/PepperCat
Summary: Threatening people ispassé, actionable, and gets them indignant. Rachel Rathaway has a different approach.





	1. I don't know you but I hate you

**Author's Note:**

> Set in my headcanon for [what happened with Axel in the CW Flashpoint](https://peppersandcats.tumblr.com/post/151236960491/axel-walker-redux-cared-for); he was fostered by Nora and Henry Allen, joined the CCPD, and Wally introduced him to Hartley.
> 
> Thanks to eh2zie365 (who has now left AO3) for the title.
> 
> And thanks to [Sister_Grimm](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sister_Grimm/pseuds/Sister_Grimm) for the "Rachel Rathaway A+ Parenting" tag.

Axel had done the meeting-the-parents thing before. It hadn't been on his radar, with Hartley; first, it'd only been a few weeks, and second, he'd figured (mostly from things Wally had let slip, because Hartley didn't volunteer much) that "family" might only come up if Hartley needed moral support. So he left it at that.

Then Rachel Rathaway had shown up at the precinct.

Axel had been meant to clock off in five minutes, and it was actually going to be more like forty, because the CCPD ran on paperwork. But he gotten called to the front desk to find Patterson looking rather cowed, and an implacably poised woman who introduced herself and then named a nearby restaurant.

He'd _meant_ to say he still had work to do but Patterson had kicked him in the ankle and Mrs Rathaway was really good at wordlessly conveying the idea that not meeting with her would give offense.

Axel didn't really care if he offended Mrs Rathaway, but the fallout would probably have been annoying, and he figured he could spare a few minutes to avoid that. Besides, he wasn't exactly sure how much Hartley would or wouldn't be upset, and _that_ he cared about.

And he was kind of curious. A little.

That was how he'd ended up sitting in a restaurant that was admittedly nicer than he usually went to, fiddling with his phone (and muting it because he figured she'd get prickly about interruptions), and wondering if Mrs Rathaway had deliberately picked a place without an actual dress code or if it was a lucky coincidence.

She ordered a couple of coffees and was saying something about the menu that he was sure he'd manage to pay attention to if it was Hartley, but Hartley was conspicuously absent. Axel had kind of assumed that wouldn't be the case.

"Mrs Rathaway," Axel said politely, "I don't know what you want. Could you please move on to that?"

"Certainly." She poured a precise spoonful of sugar into her coffee. "I wanted to get a better picture of your relationship with my son." She sounded calm and mildly interested. That didn't make Axel feel any more relaxed.

 _I bet you really don't_ , he thought, and didn't say that. "You know I'm not the first guy he's seen, right?"

"I'm well aware, but you're the current one." She sipped at the coffee, then put it down, looking thoughtful. "I do care about him, and I want what's best for him." Axel made a politely non-committal sound. "Tell me, Mr. Walker. Are you committed to him?"

 _That_ was an odd choice of words. "Are you asking if I'm cheating on him?" Which-- they hadn't exactly brought up exclusivity or anything, but it was kind of early days, and practically speaking he definitely hadn't seen anyone else, or been looking to see anyone else...

"No, nothing like that. Are you planning on a life with him in two years? Ten? Twenty-five?" Her voice was pleasant, not accusatory. Didn't make it sound any less weird.

"...it's a little soon for that." He hadn't thought about that--it was late summer and he hadn't even thought about _Thanksgiving_ , for crying out loud--but saying no felt like it would have had all the wrong weight. The conversation was throwing him; he'd been braced for the possibility of a _get your depraved hands off my son_ speech, not this polite probing about devotion and intentions.

Scripts for conversations had their uses--they'd gotten him through some very awkward situations, plus knowing what to say next could be _super_ useful when you were dealing with someone who was a bit frazzled--but Axel hated feeling like the other person had a script for the conversation and he wasn't in on it.

Mrs. Rathaway sipped at her coffee. "You certainly have a range of other options, and--looking at it dispassionately--you're likely to break up with him soon enough, if he doesn't break up with you. He can be rather difficult to deal with on occasion."

None of that was _wrong_ , exactly. It still didn't feel like something Hartley's mother should have said to anyone ever. It could have been something Henry had tried to say to Axel once, for a little perspective. Henry meant well and made Nora happy and wasn't a bad guy, but some of the well-meaning fatherly-advice conversations they'd had made Axel want to tag Barry in and run away just remembering them.

Rachel Rathaway tilted her head a little to the side, inviting him to comment. Axel thought of what Nora might do. Nora was a _lot_ better at being patient than he was, so he gave Rachel a friendly smile and drank some of his coffee and didn't say anything. She went on.

"I'm sure you're only acting with the best of intentions," she said, "but isn't good for my son to keep getting wrapped up in relationships with no future. Sooner or later, Mr. Walker, you are likely to leave him. And I don't think you'd be cruel enough to string him along after you were no longer interested simply _because_ I've pointed this out and you're feeling defiant. You like him, don't you?"

That demanded a response. "I like him," Axel said carefully. "I'm not sure I agree with you about what that means I should do."

"That's fair. You're an intelligent man; it's reasonable to entertain opposing viewpoints." She sipped at her coffee and smiled, a little sadly. "I'm given to understand you're also a practical man when it comes to dealing with potentially chaotic situations."

Nora would _so_ have raised her eyebrows at that. Axel was pretty sure the description was straight out of Singh's written review of one of Axel's own incident reports. It was the politic version of _we apparently cannot stop_ _Walker_ _from_ _poking at things that are likely to explod_ _e when he finds them, but at least he hasn't gotten blown up yet_.

"I try to be," Axel said. Singh had been ridiculously stressed about the prospect of Axel getting turned into smithereens. Axel thought he'd never been _that_ likely to get blown up, but was glad the man had signed off on his course requests. "One of my many qualities."

"I'm not an unreasonable woman, Mr. Walker. As this isn't likely to work out, I believe it will be best for my son if you leave him alone. I'm just hoping to make it clear that it would be to your benefit, too."

Oh, here it came. "I _like_ Hartley. How would it be to my benefit?"

"At the very least, I could take care of your outstanding student loans," she said calmly. "And arrange for a consideration on top of that. Twice your annual living expenses, or something similar."

Axel had been drinking coffee--partly to hide his expression--and he didn't actually end up coughing into the cup but it was close. He'd been expecting a stick, not a carrot.

He bit back a _what_ and shook his head, putting down the cup and touching the pocket with his phone with his free hand. "You're so sure it won't work you'd _pay me_ to break up with him?"

"Mr. Walker," she said, "how _could_ what you and my son are doing possibly work out? You, at least, seem to be capable of a normal relationship--"

"What?" Whoops, it got away from him that time.

"Your involvement with Patricia Spivot?" she said. "And you've dated other women in the past, Mr. Walker..." She looked mildly amused at his expression. "Of course I looked into your history, you're seeing my _son_."

Axel's stare wasn't over the revelation that she'd had someone look into him. He'd guessed that already. "' _No_ _rmal_ '?"

From the corner of his eye, he saw the waiter that had been coming towards them with a carafe veering off. Rachel offered a smile that he thought was meant to be commiserating, "I'm simply saying that you have other options, once you work through this phase."

\--yep, she'd meant what he thought she'd meant.

It was, if Axel was going to be dispassionate, probably a good time to excuse himself from the conversation. He couldn't change her mind. He didn't really care what she thought of him.

He was really bad at being dispassionate.

"You want me to dump him because he's gay," he said. That was... he'd heard worse, actually--Patty had been _really_ upset about a case the other day and he'd caught some of the details--and maybe he could have taken it a little more calmly but it was Hartley she was going after and he _liked_ Hartley.

"Your presence is a tacit endorsement of the choices he's made." She looked gently concerned. "I'd like to correct that. This lifestyle isn't going to make him happy, and I realize you probably don't _mean_ to enable anything harmful, but if you could just..."

"Just ghost on him," Axel said helpfully, smiling. It wasn't a particularly friendly smile. Nora, he imagined, would have been giving him a worried look. If she hadn't been staring at Rachel Rathaway in shocked disgust. If she'd been here.

"Actually, I'd prefer it if you told him why you were leaving," she said, "but I certainly don't require it. I think it would be best for him if you did, though. The last gentleman I made this arrangement with did."

"You had someone--" Axel looked at her across the table, and she seemed much further away than the actual distance warranted. "You waited until he _liked_ someone, and--"

He wasn't quite sure _what_ the hell he was feeling, he just knew that his hands were shaking.

"You're his _mother_." He sounded shocked, he realized. That was embarrassing.

"Absolutely," she said. "That's why I'm taking care of him."

He wasn't actually seeing red. It was just a faint tinge of the colour in his vision, and Axel let go of the coffee cup and laced his hands together and squeezed to keep the shaking under control.

He knew people who'd lost families. He knew people who'd been thrown out. He hadn't imagined--

 _being thrown out, and being watched until he_ maybe _started to be happy, and then having the rug yanked out from under him and his family making sure he knew why it had happened, showing him he wasn't worth keeping but was worth_ hurting _\--_

His fingers dug into the back of his hands. Nora wouldn't have tried to talk him out of being angry, at least, not over something like this. Just get on top of it, get ahead of it, and if you have to do something with your hands _do not_ hit the person talking to you because-- dammit, there was a _because_ , he was just having a little trouble nailing it down, something about consequences--

"You paid someone to hurt him."

"That was _not_ my goal," she said, a little sharply, and Axel decided she probably believed that, but he was okay with ignoring her point of view on the matter.

"I'm not interested in your proposition, Mrs. Rathaway," he said carefully, knuckles and nailbeds white with pressure. "Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I think you should leave now."

She scoffed. Axel hadn't known people did that outside of those British mysteries Nora watched when she had a cold. "Mr. Walker, I really must invite you to..."

Axel tuned her out.

If he got up to walk past her he was going to move. If he moved he was going to slap her. If he slapped her-- oh, no, that was untenable. Hitting Rachel Rathaway in public was just not workable any way at all. Not at all. It wasn't _survivable_.

If he wasn't going to leave, she had to.

"Mrs. Rathaway," he said, interrupting. "I've declined your offer. We're not discussing business anymore. If you're going to keep sitting here over coffee with me, I'm going to treat it like a social event. And--" He picked up on a thread of a thought and his smile lost a little of its edge. "And I'm going to talk about my boyfriend."

That, he thought, was the first time this conversation _she'd_ been surprised into being quiet. It was a nice change.

"I _beg_ your pardon."

"I'm going to talk about Hartley. --do you call him Hart or Hartley, you and your husband?" She didn't answer. Axel couldn't remember if she'd ever used Hartley's name; she had to have, right? You didn't talk about your kid and not use his name. "You wanted a better picture of the relationship? The first time I kissed him was on the hood of a car." He took a deep breath, and he was knotted so tight it actually hurt to do it.

"We were in a garage, waiting for-- doesn't matter." That sounded colder than it had been, someplace fluorescent and transient and concrete-gray, not the sunlit dust-and-summer-light garage at the West house on a Saturday afternoon. "He was sitting there, and everything smelled like warm oil and old metal. I had this crazy scared butterfly feeling in my stomach--you know the one?--and I didn't realize until he started kissing me back that he'd been holding his breath."

"Mr. _Walker_." Like ice. Like frozen poison.

"Can you imagine what that's like? A guy like Hartley--someone that smart, that-- that _bright_ \--holding his breath over you?" Axel felt his hands unclench a little. "He had one hand on my shoulder, and-- he's so quiet, you know? Was he always that quiet?" Rachel Rathaway's expression had gone grim, and when she didn't answer he shrugged.

"He made this little noise into my mouth, couldn't really hear if he was saying anything or just surprised, and I put my arm around him, hand in the small of his back, 'cause I'm leaning forward, leaning into him, and I didn't want him to fall. And oh my god I am trying _so_ hard not to grab him, not move too fast, and does this kind of tease with his tongue, all I'm thinking is how good his mouth feels--"

A slapping shock of heat, and Axel blinked, wiped Rachel Rathaway's coffee off his face. She was sitting there, expression stony and an angry flush on her face, her mouth drawn down and trembling like a bow.

All he could think was that he'd seen pretty much that exact look on Hartley's face.

"You disgusting little whore," and her voice doesn't _hurt_ , exactly, but he's suddenly second-guessing the (few, tiny) little things Hartley's bought him (really _nothing_ , like taking turns paying for drinks) and she isn't even anyone he's used to caring about. How the hell did Hartley argue with _this_?

"You _wish_ I was a whore," Axel said. His voice was shaking, but not too much. "You could buy me off if I was." He took another deep breath and put a smile on his face. "We're really getting to know each other, aren't we? I think I'm gonna start talking about my second date with Hart. I mean, the garage was great, but someone could have walked in any time--someone _did_ , actually--and I wanted--"

She was on her feet, abrupt and graceless. Axel watched her stalk out, saw her form move past the front window, and put his face in his hands. He could smell coffee in his hair, slick-sweet with sugar.

Oh Jesus.

He pulled out his phone, turned off the recording, and sent Hart a text.

> OMG this day. Can I see you tonight?


	2. Startle Response

They weren't anything like at the key stage yet, but at least far enough along that Axel unlocked his door when Hartley buzzed up. He hadn't _thought_ about keys before, and now there was a little niggling worm of Rachel Rathaway's voice--

_Two years? Ten? Twenty-five? Sooner or later, Mr. Walker..._

\--tunnelling through the back of his mind.

_Get fucked_ , he told the worm as Hartley knocked once and then came into the apartment, hanging his coat on one of the hooks by the door and groaning a little as he stretched.

"Long day?"

"Really long," Hartley said. "Precise electronics, friction and abrasion resistance, one problem after another."

"You'll solve them."

That earned him a smile. "I know."

"You're cute when you're confident," Axel said, and Hartley put one hand on his shoulder and leaned up for a kiss. He tasted like coffee and, Axel thought, smelled oddly like ozone and cold air. It was a little distracting. The cold air made sense, it was starting to get chilly in the evenings, but--

Hartley made a very mildly irritated noise and did something with his tongue that refocussed Axel's attention.

"God it's good to see you," Axel said after a moment.

"You saw me two days ago."

"Still true," Axel said, combing fingers through Hartley's hair. Hartley made a noise that he would have insisted was not actually a purr and didn't quite close his eyes, not all the way.

"So," he said, looping his arms around Axel's waist. "What was _your_ day like?"

Axel winced. "Your mom came to see me."

Hartley went perfectly still. Axel didn't even think he was breathing.

"Hart?" he said. He'd expected a bad reaction, but he'd expected a _reaction_ , not an opting out. Hartley was looking through him as if he was suddenly utterly uninteresting, face nearly perfectly blank, eyes distant behind glasses.

"I'll see myself out," he said, letting go of Axel and pulling away.

Axel hadn't expected _that_. "What?"

"I appreciate that you mentioned it up front," Hartley said, crossing the room and taking his coat off the hook. "The last one didn't."

"What?" Axel said again, stupidly. He was saying that _way_ too often today.

"On balance," Hartley said, pulling on his coat, "it's better to be sure of why it's happening. If I could talk to her, that's what I'd ask for. Of course, she doesn't talk to _me_ anymore, she's far too busy with other people. You'll forgive me for not asking if she's well." He started turning towards the door and Axel bolted across the room towards him.

"Hartley, babe, wait, _please_ \--" Axel cleared the space between them and was reaching for Hartley, got his hand on Hartley's just as Hartley got a hold of the doorknob.

They both froze.

"Are you going to let me leave?" Hartley said very calmly, looking at their hands, and Axel saw how white the other man had gone.

Oh, shit. Axel wanted to say _No_ , and bit that back so hard he couldn't speak for a second.

"Yes," he said, letting go and stepping back. Hartley still wasn't looking at him, still had his head down and was staring at the doorknob, and he didn't want to be standing over Hartley when the guy was one step away from cringing so he got down on one knee and figured he'd worry about how stupid he probably looked later. "Yeah, if you want, I'm sorry, but Hart, I don't-- did you want me to not talk to her at all? I didn't know. She just-- she showed up, and she's-- I mean, she does polite but your mom is honestly a little scary, and I just-- she wanted to talk and I couldn't say no, and--"

None of it seemed to be making an impact.

"Please don't go," Axel settled on. "Please, Hartley? We just _talked_. If you go, please don't go mad."

"You've got some _fucking_ nerve," and Axel heard the same poison in Hartley's voice that he'd heard from his mother. "You take her money and you d-d-d-- you expect me to make you feel better about it? You--"

"I didn't take it!"

There was silence. Hartley's hand was still on the doorknob. Axel was getting that funny far-away stretching effect, looking at him, as if he was a million miles away. Second time today, same as when he'd been looking at Rachel across the table. He decided he wasn't a fan.

"You said you couldn't say no."

"To _talking_ with her, Hartley, Jesus." His heart was still hammering; he hadn't honestly been sure Hartley did worse than snark, definitely hadn't expected that mentioning his mother would cause this reaction. "I didn't _agree_."

Hartley sniffed. "With all due respect, Axel, I don't think I'm that important to you."

"No," Axel said, and saw Hartley flinch, saw his shoulders lift up as if he'd been hit. "No, that's not it, Hart. I can prove it."

"It's remarkably hard to prove that particular negative--"

"I recorded it."

Hartley shut his mouth, but the silence felt a little less antagonistic than it had before.

"Why would you do that?" he said after a moment.

"Have you not _met_ your mother?" Axel spread his hands. "I don't-- It wasn't anything to do with work, Missouri's a one-party consent state, I thought it couldn't hurt. Your mom's _scary_. I was thinking... I don't know what I was thinking."

Hartley smirked. "That she'd have a couple of terrifyingly elegant meetings with people far above your pay grade who were half police and half politician, and drop gentle hints and you'd get fired, but only after she said something as clumsily melodramatic as _I will have you fired_ where you could record it?" He showed his teeth. "How very _original_."

It sounded stupid out loud. Axel set his jaw. "Maybe just that it'd end up being he-said she-said and it'd be nice to have something to refer to. You think she's the first parent who wasn't thrilled I was seeing their kid?"

Hartley didn't move. Which at least wasn't leaving.

"Look, Hart," Axel said, carefully as he could. "I don't know exactly what the other guy or guys she talked to did. And what she said--yeah, it wasn't what I was expecting to hear, you're right, that was a-- a dumb idea." Well, a clichéd idea at least, but whatever. "But I did turn her down, I swear. And I can prove it."

Hartley stayed still--not long, half a moment--then let go of the doorknob and straightened up, took a step back. He had his arms wrapped around himself and was still looking at the floor. "Get it over with."

Axel wasn't sure if that was _finish talking_ or _play the recording_. He got to his feet and pulled out his phone. "I said some things I don't know if you're going to be happy she heard," he said cautiously.

"I'm sure I've heard worse."

That was, Axel imagined, as much buy-in as he was going to get.

"You want to sit down, or--" Hartley shook his head. Axel took a step closer and pulled up the recording, pressed play.

"Did she hit you?" Hartley said at the end. "When you stopped talking?"

"She threw her coffee in my face," and Hartley looked up at him, fast and angry, eyes flicking across Axel's face.

"She can't do that to you," he said coldly. "She can't--" He swallowed and looked away. "Play it again?"

He flinched when the recording reached Axel breaking off again, but listened to it all the way through.

"Well?" Axel said.

Hartley sniffed. "It's certainly her voice, and I can't imagine she'd collude on a false recording." Well, Hartley had trouble being very gracious about anything that amounted to _you're right and I was wrong_.

"Okay." There didn't seem to be much to say after that, but the silence was awful, so Axel went with "You believe me?" and Hartley shrugged and then just stayed like that, shoulders up around his ears and arms folded around himself.

"Why didn't you?" he said, still looking at the floor. "This isn't-- you-- I've known you _weeks_ , Axel. That's nothing. You'd break up with me for a better job, if it took you to Starling or somewhere, and a good job wouldn't fix your student loans. Not that fast. You'd-- you might still ditch me if you got into that course Bernhardt's teaching at CCU, just for not having time to see me. I _know_ you would. And that's fine, it's your life, but I don't need your pity and I don't know what you're expecting now. Why didn't you take her up on it?"

"Can I hug you?" and Hartley nodded, and Axel took two steps forward and folded Hartley into his arms. The other man was so tense it was like hugging a parking meter in a coat.

"You're right," he said, because it was true and because he hadn't picked up everything but he'd at least realized that Hartley liked hearing _that_. "Okay? You're right. I might need to do something that hurt you-- and yeah, right now I _would_ break up with you if I got a reason to move, I would hate it but I would, I _cannot_ do long-distance-- but Hart, I _like_ you. I'm not going to do it _because_ it hurts you. You see? _That_ was what she was trying to buy, and fuck her. --sorry. I know she's your mom."

"It's alright," Hartley said, and then made a noise like a strangled hiccup. "Why are _you_ apologizing? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..." He trailed off and didn't move, and was still looking off and to the side, but his arms went slowly around Axel's waist and he hung on. "Can I stay?"

"Sure," Axel said, petting gently at Hartley's hair. "Sure, babe, it's okay."

"How is it _okay_?"

Axel thought for a minute. "You know your parents don't always get their way?" he said after a moment. "Plus you want to stay and you can stay, so that's a good thing. C'mon and sit down. You want to hang up your coat?"

Hartley nodded. Axel let go of him carefully, watched him take off his coat and turn to hang it up. Thought for a minute about what Hartley was likely to do next.

"If you're gonna dump me," Axel said, "please don't do it for my own good," and Hartley started and looked at him guiltily. It was nice to see the guy actually _looking_ at him again; Axel had started to wonder if he'd lost the knack.

"You don't know what she's like."

Axel grinned a little. "She gave me this crash course over coffee. I think I got a pretty good idea. And you said-- the last guy told you what she did?" Hartley did this thing that wasn't quite a flinch, but his mouth pulled down a little and he held his coat closer instead of hanging it up. "You've got a pretty good idea too."

"She'll hate you."

Axel managed a laugh. "Hartley, I promise, _really_ not the first parent who wasn't happy I was dating their kid."

"Not the first, but the one I'd worry about most." Hartley hung up his coat again, moving stiffly as if he was all over bruises, but at least he'd _hung up his stupid coat_ and Axel felt like he was starting to breathe again. He knew there were things he could have done if Hartley didn't want to hear from him--talk to Wally, maybe--but he was still glad that Hartley hadn't just _left_. He hated the idea of him going home alone that miserable.

"Okay, sure. But she wasn't any nicer last week than she was before she talked to me."

"You made her angry."

"I know. But she got the shot in with the coffee; let her feel like she won." He shrugged, put his hands on Hartley's shoulders. They were cable-tense, knotted tight. "Hartley, I'm not saying I won't listen if you tell me you think she'll be dangerous. I promise I'll listen. I'm just saying _tell_ me, okay? Don't try and decide that for me."

Hartley hesitated. "Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

"Okay." Axel was pretty sure that was going to be an argument, but it could wait. "Okay, tomorrow," he agreed, moving one hand up to the back of Hartley's neck, which was still rigid with tension. "You want dinner or anything? Did you eat yet?"

"I don't really have an appetite right now."

"How about wine? I've got a bottle of merlot."

"Why do you have merlot? You don't drink wine."

Axel shrugged. "You said you liked wine, and there was some at the grocery store." There had actually been rather a _lot_ at the grocery store, and he'd browsed the labels for longer than he'd expected and finally decided that he still didn't really see the point but if he'd put that much time in already he might as well get a bottle and maybe see about making dinner sometime, but this seemed like a better time to open it up. "You want to go sit down, I'll bring you a glass?"

Hartley nodded. By the time Axel came back, he was sitting on the couch, neatly upright, hands laced together between his knees. He looked faintly surprised at Axel's beer.

"You're not having any?"

"I will drink wine with you some other time, I promise," Axel said. "But after _that_ we each get our comfort food. Alcohol. Whatever."

Hartley nodded. Axel sat down next to him and passed him the glass, and he tapped it against the beer bottle. After a moment Axel stretched his arm across the back of the couch, behind Hartley's shoulders, and they leaned together.

"She shouldn't have spoken to you like that," Hartley said after a minute, and Axel shrugged.

"I know. It's not your fault-- it's _not_ , Hart. No-one made her try to be a--" a _malicious fucking cunt_ , but even now he doesn't think that's a good thing to say about his boyfriend's mother-- "a jerk to you. That's her fault."

"If you'd never met me she wouldn't have come to see you."

"If I'd never met you that would _suck_."

Hartley made a soft thoughtful noise and drank from his glass.

"Want to hear something funny?" Axel said after a moment.

"What?"

"That is the fastest I have ever met _anyone's_ parents." And that startled Hartley into a very brief laugh, and Axel grinned. Hartley really did have a good laugh, if you could get one out of him.

"And the worst?"

"Worst or second-worst."

Another bubble of laughter. " _Second_ -worst? What happened with the other one?"

" _Well_ ," Axel said. "You've seen those heat guns that are like a hair-dryer with a metal scraper under the nozzle? The heat bubbles up the paint, and the scraper just peels it off?"

"Oh Jesus," Hartley said. "I'm going to need more wine for this, aren't I?"

"Probably," Axel said cheerfully. "Don't worry about it, there's the whole bottle." He set his beer down on the coffee table and started gesturing. "Picture this. It's the summer before college, right, and I am making _all_ my usual good decisions..."

It doesn't fix anything Rachel Rathaway has done, but it doesn't make anything worse, and the tension's coming out of Hartley's shoulders. On balance, Axel thinks, he prefers seeing his boyfriend smile.


End file.
